Create Unique 3D Grass and Stone Text Effect in Photoshop CS6 Extended

In this tutorial, I will show you the steps to Create Unique 3D Grass and Stone Text Effect in Photoshop CS6 extended. We will explore the use of the 3D functions to create this interesting text effect. We will also go through some texturing techniques and filter effects.
If you don’t have CS6 extended, you can just download this 3D render I have here and load it into your Photoshop.
This is an intermediate level tutorial so some steps can be tricky, but why not have a try!

Note: The Photoshop tutorial is done in CS6 – therefore some screenshot may have slighting different layout as in the earlier version. Some brushes are exclusive to Photoshop CS6.

Here is a preview of the final effect I have for this tutorial: (click to enlarge)

OK Let’s get started!

To complete this tutorial, you will need the following stocks:
Font
Grass
Texture over text

Step 1

Create a new document sized 1280px * 720px with white background. Use Gradient Fill to fill background with this effect as shown below:

Load the Grass image into Photoshop, select a rectangular portion as shown below:

Copy and paste the selection over to our document, use the unsharp mask to sharp the image a little bit. Make sure you adjust the size of the selection so it doesn’t appear to be too large for our document:

Go to Filter > Distort > Wave and apply the following settings:

Use the free transform tool to adjust the shape of the grass as shown below:

Step 2

We can now add the text in. Type some letters onto the canvas:

If you have CS6 extended, you can go to 3D > New 3D Extrusion from Selected Layer, and go through the following steps. If not, you can just download this 3D render I have here:

Apply the following 3D settings:
Scene

Environment

Mesh

3D Camera

Infinite Light 1

Infinite Light 2

and you will have the following effect so far:

Step 3

We will now add the texture over the text. Load the image into Photoshop and select a piece, copy and paste the selection over to our document, and set the newly copied layer as a clipping mask to the text layer, with the blending mode set to “Overlay”:

Add a layer mask to this texture layer, then use a soft eraser (set opacity and flow to around 40%) to apply the following mask:

and you will have the following effect:

Add the following 3 adjustment layers as clipping mask to this texture layer:
Black and White

Levels

Layer mask on this levels adjustment layer:

Curves

and here is the effect so far:

Step 4

We’re almost done! I used some abstract brushes to add some patterns and particles around the text:



And also use a soft white brush to paint some highlights around the text:

I also adjusted the colour balance slightly, and here is the final effect I have for this tutorial: (click to enlarge)

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This tutorial will cover a topic that I get asked about quite a bit, especially with mobile applications like Color Splash, that allow you to isolate a specific color in your image. Singling out a specific color in your image

Color Splash Effect in Photoshop CS6

I’m finally back from vacation, armed with thousands of photos that I really don’t know what to do with. So over the next few weeks, as I’m sorting through the photos I took in London and Paris, I’ll be releasing tutorials and providing you with the images so you can follow along. In today’s image, we’re going to attempt to single out the red phone box, leaving everything else black and white. If you want to download this image, click on the image below.

Video

Written

First, we need to single out the red in the phone box. There are a few ways that we can go about doing so, but for the sake of this tutorial, we’re going to use one of my favorite selection methods, Color Range, which can be found under the Select menu.

This feature works by allowing you to select specific colors of your image, either by choosing a basic color from the dropdown, or by sampling your color of choice. In most cases, however, choosing a color from the dropdown might not be your best bet, as it’s super specific. If you select Reds, looking at the preview below, you’ll notice that the phone box isn’t fully white, which means that not all of the reds have been selected.

Further, changing the Selection Preview at the bottom to Black Matte shows us that the selection is somewhat faded.

Let’s try out the sampling method. This allows up to sample multiple shades of the base color that we want to select. Clicking on the phone box will sample a range of reds, defined by our Fuzziness slider. A higher value will include more similar tones, while a lower value will restrict the sampling to the specific red that you selected.

Now if there are reds that have not been selected, holding down your Shift key and clicking on the additional tones will include them in the sample.

As you select a larger range of tones, you might start to see areas outside the phone box being selected. There are two things you can do to help alleviate this. First, like we covered a moment ago, the Fuzziness slider can help increase or decrease the amount of similar tones that are being included in the selection.

You also have the Localized Color Clusters option, and the Range Slider. This can help focus your selection around the area that you have been sampling. A lower Range value will tighten up the selection around your subject.

Even after you have adjusted these sliders, you may want to go back and Shift+click on the areas that may have been removed. Your result won’t be 100% perfect, but we’ll deal with that in a moment.
Once you’re happy with the sampling, because we want to change everything except the phone box, go ahead and turn on the Invert option, and press OK. This will give us a selection of everything else in our photo.

From here, if you wanted to turn everything else Black and White, your best bet would be to add an Adjustment Layer to keep our edit non-destructive.

This also gives us the ability to tweak the effect if needed. For example, the sign in the background got included in our selection. Because the Adjustment Layer includes a Layer Mask, we can grab a white brush, and paint overtop of the sign to remove it’s red tones. The opposite works as well. If there are areas of the phone box which were not included, a black brush will bring back the reds which got lost in the process.

And there you have it. A simple way of singling out a color in Photoshop!

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Create a Dock Icon Folder in Photoshop

This is our very first tutorial on our site and the reason we decided to use this tutorial is because, it is one of the beautiful icon tutorials i’ve seen online. This tutorial shows you how to create a dock icon folder in photoshop, customize it and fill your dock with all your favorite folders.
I love the fact that it is customizable and also the people at DrawingClouds have been nice enough to make it available for download. Also, if you are a photoshop beginner, this is the right tutorial for you.
STEP 1 – NEW DOCUMENT
Create a new document in photoshop with a transparent background, I choose 512×512px.

STEP 2 – FRONT
Select the Rounded Rectangle Tool (U), with 15px radius and draw a shape like below,

then go to Edit – Transform – Warp and pull the four corners, pull the top corners a bit more, press enter when you’re satisfied with the result. The color of the shape isn’t important, name that layer Front.

Instead of using the Warp tool you can do Edit – Transform – Perspective it give a straighter look to the folder.

STEP 3 – DROP SHADOW
Apply a drop shadow to the Front layer, Layer – Layer Style – Drop Shadow or double click the layer and in the blending options choose drop shadow, set the values like this:

STEP 4 – BACK
Create two new shapes with the Rounded Rectangle Tool with 10px radius

Merge the two layers by selecting both of them and Right Click – Merge Layers, name the layer Back. Apply a drop shadow to the Back layer like we did in Step 3 with those values:


STEP 5 – CUSTOMIZATION
Choose an Image or a logo you’d like on your folder, I’ve choose a Firefox image : Here
Open your image in photoshop and drag it in your document, place it and scale it (Ctrl+T) where you want, duplicate the image layer. Take one of the image layers and place it in on top of the Front layer, make a selection of the Front layer, Ctrl+Left Click on the little thumbnail in the layer panel or Select – Load Selection. Select the image layer and create a layer mask Layer – Layer Mask – Reveal Selection, name this layer Front Image.

Select the other image layer we duplicated before and repeat the same process with the Back layer. Name the layer Back Image

STEP 6 – TEXT
Just add some text on the top; I’ve put Firefox using a font called Cooper Std with 36px.
STEP 7 – REFLECTION
To add a little glow you can do a reflection of your folder, to do that select all the layers and duplicate them. Merge all the duplicated layers you’ll have one layer name it Reflection. Rotate it 180° and go to Edit – Transform – Flip Horizontal. Drag the reflection just under the folder and create a layer mask on it Layer – Layer Mask – Reveal All. Then select the gradient tool going from black to white and make a gradient starting in the bottom going a little bit further than the reflection, make sure the layer mask is selected.

This tutorial is originally from DesignClouds.com

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